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Tyse Gorman

U of U

Writing 2010

B3

Not Simple Minded

Working is something that has been around since the beginning of mankind, it is

something that defined the craft of the human race and how we have developed off of other

pre-existing work. In Blue-Collar Brilliance written by Mike rose in 2009, showed and broke

down the basics of working a job. He goes into the different kind of concepts of the human brain

and how just having a blue-collar job does not define your level of intelligence. He is able to

show this by telling a story of his own and why he has come to that conclusion. He is able to tell

the story by using rhetorical devices, such as ethos, pathos, and logos.

The story began with him and his mom, his mom worked in a restaurant in Los Angeles.

Sometimes she worked the register and the counter, and we sat there; when she waited booths

and tables, we found a booth in the back where the waitresses took their breaks. They would

wait for her to get off and leave on a bus. This is at the beginning of the story and the rhetorical

device being shown here would be pathos and ethos. Pathos because of the imagery that he gave

and how his mom would work while he would watch and wait. Ethos because he started to give

information about his family and what he would do while his mom worked. The reason why this

quote is important is because it sets up the whole story about work.

In the middle of the story, it jumps to the way of thinking and assuming things is because

we were raised or taught to do so. We reinforce this notion by defining intelligence solely on
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grades in school and numbers on IQ tests. This is important to the text because it is something

that is very much alive in places that have schooling. This would be logos because it takes on

two views, it could be logical or argumentative. Logical because it has something to do with

reasonings and why it would make sense to many people. Argumentative because it could be

something that would be taken the wrong way to some people and that grades or IQ tests are

sometimes are the reasons for great and bad outcomes of one's life.

Throughout the story, it talks about his mom, himself, and his uncle. They all are

different places in the story, his uncle is in an automotive industry, his mom is at a restaurant,

and himself is in high school then shifts to him being older and study certain subjects in college.

working on the assembly line to supervising the paint-and-body department. That was his

uncle named Joe and he worked at the auto factory. Theres a bunch of imagery because it is a

story. Rosie took customers orders, pencil poised over pad, while fielding questions about the

food. This was his mother's name and it just had more imagery of her in the restaurant working.

Eight years ago I began a study of the thought processes involved in work like that of my

mother and uncle. This was Mike and some imagery and nostalgia, the reason why there was

nostalgia is because it is something that he did in the past and that it was something that sparked

something that he wanted to do in the future and study.

His uncle Joe worked in an auto factory and they needed to find ways to be more efficient

and productive. His uncle started to learn his job quite well and started to learn from perspective.

He had each worker in a unit learn his or her co-workers jobs so they could rotate across

stations to relieve some of the monotony. This shows credibility, even though it wasnt Joes

job to make things run smoother and more efficient, he did it anyways. He showed authority to
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others. So for this quote, its ethos because of credibility and authority. He takes credibility by

creating something and even though its not his position to do so. He took authority and started

to tell people what to do and rotating them as if he is running the business and hes in a high

powered position. What the author is trying to convey in these quotes is imagery to tell a story of

his family.

At the end of the reading, there is a part where the author points something out and

something that he believes in. To acknowledge a broader range of intellectual capacity is to take

seriously the concept of cognitive variability, to appreciate in all the Rosies and Joes the thought

that drives their accomplishments and defines who they are. This part is something that

completed the whole story and got a message across. To understand and recognize all intellectual

people and even people that do blue-collar work, its who they are and have to recognize their

intelligence for making them the way they are today and achieving what they have

accomplished. For this quote, I think that the author was stating what the whole reason why he

wrote this and its something that shouldnt be looked over. For this rhetorical device, its pathos

and logos. Logos because it could be interpreted in a different way and people could just say I

dont want a blue-collar job because its easy and fro not so smart people. Pathos because of the

word choice and the impact it could have on a reader if the reader knows what he or she is

reading.

This story that Mike Rose told about himself and how he learned about the topics that he

did in college all because of his mom and his uncle. He was able to see how things worked with

the human interactions in an environment where they had to take orders and work. Mike Rose

was able to tell this story in some rhetorical devices such as pathos, logos, and ethos.
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